Kiev regime may be trying to knock off Georgian mercenaries responsible for Maidan massacre

(New Eastern Outlook) – It is not hard to read between the lines of recent news articles in the Georgian press about so-called Georgian fighters in Ukraine fighting on the side of Kiev. Apparently a cleanup operation is going on, not to eliminate the alleged pro-Moscow “separatists” in the East of the country but with some elements within the ranks of those who came to fight in Ukraine—on the side of Kiev.

Along with former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, they entered Ukraine to get another go at the Russians, closer to their home territory. Their presence there has nothing to do with Ukraine itself. The cleanup operation is a reflection of Georgian internal politics and overall US plans for the region, which Ukraine can do without being the theatre for.

Set up to be taken out

We are told by the above-mentioned Georgian link that a number of troops walked straight into an ambush, and that their Ukrainian commanders set them up to be eliminated by the separatists. This would be entirely consistent with previous developments in this story, as it is not new. We have been following it since 2014, and NEO and Veterans today were the first to report on the nexus between the indiscriminate murders in Maidan and Georgian-trained snipers, who mysteriously moved from Maidan Square to Syria, as if they would be interested in that conflict, on fake Georgian passports.

Those links were established, with supporting evidence, even before Gian Micalessin‏, an Italian journalist, claimed to have first broken the story. The lid had already been blown off through contact with Georgian army personnel who had been involved in training those snipers, and even one of the Maidan snipers himself. As Jim Dean of Veterans Today wrote, Micalessin’s story merely confirmed VT’s earlier reports of how outside mercenaries had been brought in to shoot up both demonstrators and security police in a classic Cold War psyop.

There has long been a practice of governments paying snipers to shoot people indiscriminately in Eastern Europe. Prior to August 2008, before the Georgian-Russian war, snipers operating in Georgia (some of whom were the same people), who had been trained by a US contractor, Archangel, were employed to kill civilians in South Ossetia. The important thing to remember is that “Often the people who do these whack jobs are “disappeared” afterwards to tidy up the official version of the event”. This explains what almost went down in Ukraine.

Ambush also a US operation

If these troops were set up by their own commanders, having been imported there by the US to begin with, that makes the ambush also a US operation. When such operations are alleged elsewhere we always find individual Americans suddenly appearing in ill-defined “support roles” and getting out after the dirty deed has been done. This is exactly what has happened in this case too, as we can identify at least two of these mysterious figures who suddenly took an interest in Ukraine.

There is a very big nexus with the “soldier of fortune” John Giduck, who claims to be a second generation Ukrainian-American who has travelled, worked and studied extensively in Russia and the former Soviet Union for almost twenty years. Many of his stories and tall tales have been debunked in recent years; much of his CV has been demonstrated to be faked, despite the high powered spin offered by some who are part of such schemes in response to the respected Washington Monthly in its March/April 2011 issue. But though various groups have proved Giduck a con-artist, he keeps showing up in places associated with the shedding of innocent blood, as in Georgia and Beslan, and this may be more than coincidence.

We should also notice the activities of a certain Brian Christopher Boyenger, who claims to be a former American paratrooper, joined the Ukrainian army’s Georgian National Legion and took part in active combat missions in the war-torn Donbass Region. As an Italian Journalist wrote,

“A few days before the Maidan massacre, Mamulashvili presented to the selected shooters a guy in uniform … he introduced him and told us he was an instructor, an American soldier. The US military man is called Brian Christopher Boyenger, a former officer and shooter of the 101st Airborne Division. “We were always in touch with this Brian – he was Mamulashvili’s man. It was he who gave us the orders; I had to follow all his instructions.””

An article in the US-controlled English language press in Georgia also describes Boyenger as a retired officer and former sniper from the US Army’s elite 101st Airborne Division, and further claims that he is the first US citizen to formally join the Ukrainian military in an official combat role since hostilities broke out against Russian forces and their ‘separatist proxies’ in April 2014.

Nor is the ambush the only strange involving Georgian troops in Ukraine. It has been reported that Georgian volunteers who have been fighting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since 2014 have accused their commander of betrayal and abandoned the brigade they belonged to in the Ukrainian military.

“All but three of approximately 40 Georgian volunteers have walked away from the Foreign Brigade of Ukraine’s Armed Forces … and now “vow not to leave the war zone but instead merge with some other military unit,” said commander of the Georgian Legion Mamuka Mamulashvili.

Knowing your enemy

The infamous Mamuka Mamulashvili is a story in himself, which has been well documented. It involves Georgian snipers, the Georgian Brigade, and a bunch of CIA-sponsored hired killers who have attached themselves to him in some way. NEO partner organisation Veterans Today has even contacted Mamulashvili, giving him an opportunity to respond to an earlier article about him and the activities of Georgians in Ukraine, but not received a response, unsurprisingly.

It is not difficult to discover Mamulashvili’s history. One just needs to look at all the US and NATO-sponsored media outlets which write positive stories about him and how he got to Ukraine, where these stories are published and where they are not, and it becomes possible to build a picture of who his friends really are.

There is also the issue of where he gets his money from. As an irregular, Mamulashvili is not paid by the regular Ukrainian army, but nor is there any evidence that he has been hired as a mercenary, a paid combatant receiving a salary. As a volunteer soldier, he has to meet his own expenses, or get someone else to do that for him.

In Georgia Mamulashvili was not independently wealthy. Before going to Ukraine he worked for the Ministry of Defence as a paid advisor to Irakli Alasania. We know from previous press reports and documents this is the person the US wanted to take control in Georgia after Saakashvili crashed and burned, at least before Bidzina Ivanishvili became available.

But as the new government’s first Defence Minister, Alasania fired Mamulashvili and 30 other veterans during a so-called “reorganisation process” connected with either cleansing the department of the many involved in criminal procurements or bringing in new people whose pockets the minister wanted to line through another set of criminal procurements, depending on your point of view.

Mamulashvili has said publicly that he was not removed due to any reorganisation but because he was politically active. It is true that Alasania was not one to tolerate those he saw as threats, especially from within his own rank and file, so this is credible. However if we accept Mamulashvili’s own story, he was removed specifically for having connections with former president Saakashvili, and political and career objectives of his own which were somehow linked with Saakashvili.

If this is so, Mamulashvili is being paid by Saakashvili, or the tooth fairy, and supported by his media team. This in turn means that he is on the payroll of the Americans, as Saakashvili and the other wanted Georgians who were spirited to Ukraine made no secret of being on someone’s payroll.

Mamulashvili’s media connections clearly link him to the US Embassy, and to a team of foreign nationals based in Georgia who provide media support for the regime in Kiev – Vice News, VOA, former Peace Corp Volunteers and others working under the guise of running language clubs in Tbilisi and working for various NGOs.

Study in Scarlet – Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson

Their names and connections are well known: Richard Delong, who was giving interviews with various German media outlets about Euromaidan, and had bragged about how some of his statements may end up in the film they are working on, and a French National, Remi Boissonnas, who is claimed to be the mastermind behind the Tbilisi cell that was involved with much of what transpired in Kiev and providing covering media support under the guise of Language Exchange Club Tbilisi, who were involved with Language Exchange Club Kiev, during the Putsch.

One member, the guitarist among this groups is perhaps a Mormon [well, he studied at their Brigham Young university in Utah] and he is VERY interested in Russian, linguistics, and his politics of Euromaidan, often quoted Saakashvili when he wrote to his friends. “The people with you tonight are from the inner circle of Saakashvili and his team.”

We should remember that not that long ago there were plans for a pro-Saakashvili coup in Georgia, which was stopped thanks to friends in Turkish intelligence and the efforts of Veterans Today.

Knowing your friends and your enemies

What has transpired in Ukraine is a threat to Ukrainian, Georgian, Russian and US national security, and for that matter, everybody else’s, but it has taken since 2014 for the full story to develop, even the extent of US involvement in these murders.

It is now clear, at least in retrospect, that Georgia should never have allowed its nationals to engage in Ukraine, a BIG mistake. However, it was an avoidable one. Those associated with Saakashvili’s rebels (boeviki) have actually been blessed until recently by the present Georgian government, which has always supported the Poroshenko regime in Kiev.

We know this because the US Embassy and State Department have approved of their activities, supported them financially and provided them with the necessary military hardware. Even if the Georgian government did not want this to happen, it wouldn’t have had a choice. This also explains how a number of young Georgians who didn’t have passports suddenly ended up fighting in Ukraine or Syria, and their families were told that the identity if the person who gave them their passport was classified.

Many of the individuals involved in supporting this conflict, they are complicit in the murders of these Georgian soldiers, worked in Kiev prior to being relocated to Tbilisi, and still move back and forth on a regular basis. It is easy to track them via their social media postings, Facebook, and those who know them personally. Not only the CIA uses Facebook and fake accounts.

As Jim Dean of Veterans Today best sums it up, “as for volunteers fighting in other people’s wars … most of them were like mercenaries everywhere, are in it for the thrill, the money, and stories to tell when [they] get home.” But a group of these volunteers have now found out the hard way that hard politics is a bigger driving factor in the Ukraine conflict, and the installation of the Kiev government, than any grievance anyone might have had which could lead to war.

It is easy to see why Georgians might want to fight in Ukraine, paid or not. Russia was seen by some of them as the common enemy, and the Poroshenko regime was presented as the popular response to alleged Russian attempts to dominate Ukraine through Yanukovych. The fact that Ukrainians themselves twice elected Yanukovych, and twice outside forces intervened to remove him, was not important. Georgians don’t place much credence in the results of elections, and with good reason given what they have seen back home.

But Georgian volunteers can’t act as individuals in the service of an army. They are integral parts of a political scheme, and that is something that we are not supposed to be able to connect. It is clear that many of them have bitter memories themselves of from Saakashvili’s years of misrule and terror. Kiev at first may not have cared who was running their units, or why, but they do now. Hopefully Georgia as a nation will too realise it has to act differently, times have changed, and it too must try to extricate itself from sending its own citizens to be murdered by their own comrades fighting in a conflict which doesn’t help Georgia in the least.

Forget the All-Blacks ‘Haka’, ignore Foreman-Frasier, Drago-Balboa, and Ortiz-Liddell, the honor of the greatest (or perhaps most awkward) staredown in history now goes to US Vice President Mike Pence…

Having been blamed for everything from Trump’s election victory to USA soccer team’s loss to England last week, Russia faced accusations all weekend and was reportedly confronted by the US contingent over “meddling.”

As The Sun reports,Pence and Putin “discussed the upcoming G20 Summit and touched on the issues that will be discussed when President Trump and President Putin are both in Argentina for the summit,” according to the vice president’s press secretary, Alyssa Farah.

An NBC reporter tweeted: “New per the @VP’s Office—> The VP’s office says Vice President Pence directly addressed Russian meddling in the 2016 election in a conversation with Vladimir Putin on Thursday in Singapore.

“The conversation took place following the plenary session this afternoon at ASEAN.”

But, it was the following clash of the titans that caught most people’s attention.

As the Russian president joined the that Pence shook Putin’s ‘deadly’ hand, met his ‘steely KGB-trained’ gaze, and desperately tried not to smile or blink for 20 seconds as Putin appeared to chat amicably with the US VP…

While Putin has (if his accusers are to be believed) grappled his opponents to death with his bare hands (remember he is a sinister KGB agent and jiu-jitsu expert); we suspect the only thing VP Pence has gripped tightly in his hands is his bible.

Sadly, John Bolton then blew the tough guy act (or is he Mike Pence’s ‘good cop’) as he does his best impression of a teenage girl meeting their popstar idol for the first time…

This move was strongly condemned by the authorities of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has the only canonically accepted church presence in Ukraine, a situation that the Ecumenical Patriarch himself agreed with only a few years ago.

Russia moved to break communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, creating a split in the Orthodox Church, but a split that at first risked Russia standing alone in their statement of disapproval of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s actions.

For a time the reaction of the other “local” Orthodox Churches was cautious, with the vast majority (excepting only the Greek Church in the USA) coming out in support of the canonical group in Ukraine, but without taking similar action to Moscow.

That appears to be changing.

On November 12 and 16, respectively, the Churches of Serbia and Poland issued strong statements. They both categorically refused to recognize the Ukrainian schismatic groups and they forbade their clergy to concelebrate with the “clergy” within these groups. The Serbs’ statement on this was as follows:

“The Assembly does not recognize the mentioned figures and their followers as Orthodox bishops and clergy and, consequently, does not accept liturgical and canonical communion with them and their supporters.”

“The Holy Bishops’ Council forbids the priests of the Polish Orthodox Church from having liturgical and prayerful contact with the ‘clergy’ of the so-called Kiev Patriarchate and the so-called ‘Autocephalous Orthodox Church,’ which have committed much evil in the past,” the statement reads.

According to the Polish hierarchs, persons deprived of episcopal and clerical ordination cannot be leaders in establishing peace in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“Only the observance of the dogmatic and canonical norms of the Church and the preservation of the centuries-old tradition will protect Orthodoxy from severe ecclesiastical consequences on an international scale. The Polish Orthodox Church prays fervently for the unity of the holy Orthodox Church and for peace for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” the message further reads.

And while yet officially under the omophorion of Constantinople, several Greek monasteries on Mount Athos, the Orthodox monastic republic that is the spiritual center of all of Eastern Orthodoxy, inserted special petitions in their services to pray for Metropolitan Onufry and the people of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – that is, the canonical group that is a highly autonomous, or independent, Church while yet under the Moscow Patriarchate.

This is an interesting situation because in terms of ecclesial jurisdiction, Mount Athos is actually under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. However, the monasteries there often are known for taking the hardest of hardline stances when even their own Patriarchate takes actions they feel to be wrong:

Thousands of Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians go on pilgrimage to Mt. Athos, which is under the jurisdiction of Constantinople, every year. However, the Russian Church, of which the Ukrainian Church is an autonomous, self-governing part, broke communion with Constantinople on October 15, which the Ukrainian Church confirmed yesterday, due to unilateral Constantinople’s interference in ecclesiastical life in Ukraine.

“We know that the majority of the abbots of the Athonite monasteries do not agree with the anti-canonical decisions of the Phanar,” Met. Anthony said.

“In several monasteries—Greek ones, by the way—they have included a special petition in the Litany of Peace in the morning and evening services: ‘For His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry with his suffering flock.,’” he explained, adding, “We are very grateful to the Athonites for their brotherly love and prayers.”

This is a story that it still developing, but the recent moves by Poland and Serbia may be outlining the path that other local Orthodox Churches will take.

That move is to deny recognition to the schismatics that Patriarch Bartholomew lifted the anathemas and depositions for. If this step were to be taken by all the local Churches that have expressed support for the canonical Ukrainian Church, the result would be not much different than where the schismatics were on October 10th:

Filaret Denisenko’s group and Makary’s group would indeed have communion with Constantinople, and presumably the Greek Orthodox Church in the USA, but with no one else.

This move would be a severe repudiation of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s repeated declaration that he has the sole authority to grant autocephaly to anyone anywhere in the Orthodox world (or even to take it away), which is a canonical absurdity.

Given the substantial problems that Filaret Denisenko continues to create, such as refusing to be considered only a Metropolitan (this was the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s order), and to still consider himself a patriarch, blessing a blasphemous “icon” that is really just a monument to Ukrainian ultra-nationalism and secularism (note the neo-Nazi wolfsangel and machine guns in the upper right of this photo:

And given the ideations of Patriarch Bartholomew himself, who is also recently reported to be pushing towards creating unity with the Roman Catholic Church, while acting like a pope himself by insisting that all the local Orthodox Churches will accept his decisions, it does not look like this situation is going to go away by itself.

However, by placing the problem of the schismatics squarely in Patriarch Bartholomew’s hands (since he created the problem), the pressure created by other churches refusing to concelebrate with the Ukrainian schismatics may be enough to isolate the Ecumenical Patriarchate itself, rather than fulfilling the highly likely goal that the US, Ukraine and Patriarch Bartholomew may have had initially – to isolate Russia and create a situation where Russia is made to look like the bad guy, once again.

Was $25 million in American tax dollars allocated for a payoff to stir up religious turmoil and violence in Ukraine? Did Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (unsuccessfully) attempt to divert most of it into his own pocket?

Last month the worldwide Orthodox Christian communion was plunged into crisis by the decision of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in Constantinople to recognize as legitimate schismatic pseudo-bishops anathematized by the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is an autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church. In so doing not only has Patriarch Bartholomew besmirched the global witness of Orthodoxy’s two-millennia old Apostolic faith, he has set the stage for religious strife in Ukraine and fratricidal violence – which hasalready begun.

No one – and certainly not this analyst – would accuse Patriarch Bartholomew, most Ukrainian politicians, or even the Ukrainian schismatics of sympathizing with advocacy of such anti-Orthodox values. And yet these advocates know they cannot advance their goals if the conciliar and traditional structure of Orthodoxy remains intact. Thus they welcome efforts by Constantinople to centralize power while throwing the Church into discord, especially the Russian Church, which is vilified in some Western circles precisely because it is a global beacon of traditional Christian moral witness.

This aspect points to another reason for Western governments to support Ukrainian autocephaly as a spiritual offensive against Russia and Orthodoxy. The post-Maidan leadership harp on the “European choice” the people of Ukraine supposedly made in 2014, but they soft-pedal the accompanying moral baggage the West demands, symbolized by “gay” marches organized over Christian objections in Orthodox cities like Athens, Belgrade, Bucharest, Kiev, Odessa, Podgorica, Sofia, and Tbilisi. Even under the Trump administration, the US is in lockstep with our European Union friends in pressuring countries liberated from communism to adopt such nihilistic “democratic, European values.”

Perhaps even more important to its initiators, the row over Ukraine aims to break what they see as the “soft power” of the Russian Federation, of which the Orthodox Church is the spiritual heart and soul. As explained by Valeria Z. Nollan, professor emerita of Russian Studies at Rhodes College:

‘The real goal of the quest for autocephaly [i.e., complete self-governing status independent of the Moscow Patriarchate] of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a de facto coup: a political coup already took place in 2014, poisoning the relations between western Ukraine and Russia, and thus another type of coup – a religious one – similarly seeks to undermine the canonical relationship between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Moscow.’

In furthering these twin objectives (morally, the degrading of Orthodox Christianity; politically, undermining the Russian state as Orthodoxy’s powerful traditional protector) it is increasingly clear that the United States government – and specifically the Department of State – has become a hands-on fomenter of conflict. After a short period of appropriately declaring that “any decision on autocephaly is an internal [Orthodox] church matter,” the Department within days reversed its position and issued a formal statement (in the name of Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, but clearly drafted by the European bureau) that skirted a direct call for autocephaly but gave the unmistakable impression of such backing. This is exactly how it was reported in the media, for example, “US backs Ukrainian Church bid for autocephaly.” Finally, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo weighed in personally with his own endorsement as did the US Reichskommissar for Ukraine, Kurt Volker.

The Threat…

There soon became reason to believe that the State Department’s involvement was not limited to exhortations. As reported by this analyst in October, according to an unconfirmed report originating with the members of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (an autonomous New York-based jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate), in July of this year State Department officials (possibly including Secretary Pompeo personally) warned the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (also based in New York but part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate) that the US government was aware of the misappropriation of a large amount of money, about $10 million, from estimated $37 million raised from believers for the construction of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine in New York. The State Department warning also reportedly noted that federal prosecutors have documentary evidence confirming the withdrawal of these funds abroad on the orders of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. It was suggested that Secretary Pompeo would “close his eyes” to this theft in exchange for movement by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in favor of Ukrainian autocephaly, which helped set Patriarch Bartholomew on his current course.

[Further details on the St. Nicholas scandal are available here, but in summary: Only one place of worship of any faith was destroyed in the September 11, 2001, attack in New York and only one building not part of the World Trade Center complex was completely destroyed. That was St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, a small urban parish church established at the end of World War I and dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, who is very popular with Greeks as the patron of sailors. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attack, and following a lengthy legal battle with the Port Authority, which opposed rebuilding the church, in 2011 the Greek Archdiocese launched an extensive campaign to raise funds for a brilliant innovative design by the renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava based on traditional Byzantine forms. Wealthy donors and those of modest means alike enthusiastically contributed millions to the effort. Then – poof! In December 2017, suddenly all construction was halted for lack of funds and remains stalled to this day. Resumption would require having an estimated $2 million on hand. Despite the Archdiocese’s calling in a major accounting firm to conduct an audit, there’s been no clear answer to what happened to the money. Both the US Attorney and New York state authorities are investigating.]

This is where things get back to Ukraine. If the State Department wanted to find the right button to push to spur Patriarch Bartholomew to move on the question of autocephaly, the Greek Archdiocese in the US is it. Let’s keep in mind that in his home country, Turkey, Patriarch Bartholomew has virtually no local flock – only a few hundred mostly elderly Greeks left huddled in Istanbul’s Phanar district. (Sometimes the Patriarchate is referred to simply as “the Phanar,” much as “the Vatican” is shorthand for the Roman Catholic papacy.) Whatever funds the Patriarchate derives from other sources (the Greek government, the Roman Catholic Church, the World Council of Churches), the Phanar’s financial lifeline is the ethnic Greek community (including this analyst) in what is still quaintly called the “Diaspora” in places like America, Australia, and New Zealand. And of these, the biggest cash cow is the Greek-Americans.

That’s why, when Patriarch Bartholomew issued a call in 2016 for what was billed as an Orthodox “Eighth Ecumenical Council” (the first one since the year 787!), the funds largely came from America, to the tune of up to $8 million according to the same confidential source as will be noted below. Intended by some as a modernizing Orthodox “Vatican II,” the event was doomed to failure by a boycott organized by Moscow over what the latter saw as Patriarch Bartholomew’s adopting papal or even imperial prerogatives – now sadly coming to bear in Ukraine.

…and the Payoff

On top of the foregoing, it now appears that the State Department’s direct hand in this sordid business may not have consisted solely of wielding the “stick” of legal threat: there’s reason to believe there was a “carrot” too. It very recently came to the attention of this analyst, via an unsolicited, confidential source in the Greek Archdiocese in New York, that a payment of $25 million in US government money was made to Constantinople to encourage Patriarch Bartholomew to move forward on Ukraine.

The source for this confidential report was unaware of earlier media reports that the same figure – $25 million – was paid by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to the Phanar as an incentive for Patriarch Bartholomew to move forward on creating an independent Ukrainian church. Moreover, Poroshenko evidently tried to shortchange the payment:

‘Peter [Petro] Poroshenko — the president of Ukraine — was obligated to return $15 million US dollars to the Patriarch of Constantinople, which he had appropriated for himself.

‘As reported by Izvestia, this occurred after the story about Bartholomew’s bribe and a “vanishing” large sum designated for the creation of a Unified Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine surfaced in the mass media.

‘As reported, on the eve of Poroshenko’s visit in Istanbul, a few wealthy people of Ukraine “chipped in” in order to hasten the process of creating a Unified Local Orthodox Church. About $25 million was collected. They were supposed to go to the award ceremony for Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople for the issuing of a tomos of autocephaly. [A tomos is a small book containing a formal announcement.] However, in the words of people close to the backer, during the visit on April 9, Poroshenko handed over only $10 million.

‘As a result, having learned of the deal, Bartholomew cancelled the participation of the delegation of the Phanar – the residence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, in the celebration of the 1030th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia on July 27 in Kiev.

‘”Such a decision from Bartholomew’s side was nothing other than a strong ultimatum to Poroshenko to return the stolen money. Of course, in order to not lose his face in light of the stark revelations of the creation of the tomos of autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Peter Alexeevich [Poroshenko] had to just return those $15 million for the needs of Constantinople,” a trusted source explained to reporters.

‘For preliminary information, only after receiving the remaining sum, did Bartholomew finally give his consent to sending a delegation of the Phanar to Kiev … ‘

Now, it’s possible that the two identical figures of $25 million refer to two different pots of money (a cool $50 million!) but that seems unlikely. It’s more probable the reports refer to the same sum as viewed from the sending side (the State Department, the Greek Archdiocese) and the delivery side (Poroshenko, Constantinople).

Lending credibility to the confidential information from New York and pointing to the probability that it refers to the same payment that Poroshenko reportedly sought to raid for himself are the following observations:

When Poroshenko generously offered Patriarch Bartholomew $10 million, the latter was aware that the full amount was $25 million and demanded the $15 million Poroshenko had held back. How did the Patriarch know that, unless he was informed via New York of the full sum?

If the earlier-reported $25 million was really collected from “a few wealthy people of Ukraine” who “chipped in,” given the cutthroat nature of disputes among Ukrainian oligarchs would Poroshenko (an oligarch in his own right) have risked trying to shortchange the payment? Why has not even one such Ukrainian donor been identified?

Without going into all the details, the Phanar and the Greek Archdiocese have a long relationship with US administrations of both parties going back at least to the Truman administration, encompassing some decidedly unattractive episodes. In such a history, a mere bribe for a geopolitical shot against Moscow would hardly be a first instance or the worst.

As one of this analyst’s Greek-American connections puts it: “It’s easy to comprehend the Patriarchate bowing to the pressure of State Dept. blackmail… not overly savory, but understandable. However, it’s another thing altogether if Kiev truly “purchased” their autocephalous status from an all too willing Patriarchate … which would relegate the Patriarch to ‘salesman’ status and leave the faithful wondering what else might be offered to the highest bidder the next time it became convenient to hold a Patriarchal ‘fire sale’ at the Phanar?!”

Finally, it seems that, for the time being at least, Constantinople doesn’t intend to create an independent Ukrainian church but rather an autonomous church under its own authority. It’s unclear whether or not Poroshenko or the State Department, in such event, would believe they had gotten their money’s worth. Perhaps they would. After all, the issue here is less what is appropriate for Ukraine than what strikes at Russia and injures the worldwide Christian witness of the Orthodox Church. To that end, it doesn’t matter whether the new illegal body is Constantinopolitan or Kievan, just so long as it isn’t a “Moskal church” linked to Russia.